Not all CR's are equal!

[Plane Sailing]

In the adventure last weekend, there was one combat against a CR7 White Dragon which the party only just survived - if I didn't have moderately generous "last gasp" rules there would have been 2 dead as well as three severely wounded in a party of six 7th level characters. It would have been worse if it hadn't been a dumb (8 INT) White.

Much later on they attack a 7th level evil priest (CR7) with his backup of 5th fighter, dire ape and 10 hobgoblin Warrior 2's. Far easier fight - there was one death in the end, but the rest of the party were all at better than half hit points.

It was a helpful reminder to me that while CR's are a useful tool for judging what kind of a threat something might be, never underestimate the ability of a creature with multiple attacks and lots of damage to tear people apart!

n.b. they were hunting the white dragon, and were fully prepared for it. I wonder if dragon CR's were underrated to give them more of a "rep"

Cheers

 

[Archer]

They couldn't kill a creature with 142 hp and an AC of 23 in 1 or 2 rounds? Its fear DC isn't even that strong. It has a little SR but it takes double damage from fire. Start out with a round of ranged combat, make it move up and take its one attack at a mere +18 to hit, then the fighters take a 5' step towards it and full attack. Dragon is dead, the party takes (almost) no damage. If it stays back and breathes (for an average of 7.5 pts of damage or 0 with protection instead of resist), finish it off with a 2nd round of arrow fire.

That priest is nasty though. He can use poison for 1d10 Con x2 twice per day or perhaps unholy blight. That's about equal to the dragon's breath weapon and fear effect.

 

[Targos]

CRs.. dragons

Actually I have heard talk that dragons are actually tougher than their listed CR and that was done deliberately. Don't take this as much more than a rumor, but from what I understand the game designers wanted dragons to be the toughest thing in the game. I've never heard a creditable source say this, but it seems to be the way it rolled out. You can probably bump the CR of any given dragon a few places.

 

[Plane Sailing]

They couldn't kill a creature with 142 hp and an AC of 23 in 1 or 2 rounds? Its fear DC isn't even that strong. It has a little SR but it takes double damage from fire

Darn tootin they couldn't.

It wasn't a genius, but it had plenty of advantages in its favour. I actually forgot about its SR, which would have made it far nastier.

They had cornered it in its cave - generally a much better idea than trying to fight it flying. However, in order to make its cave nice and pretty the white dragon had throughly iced everything up, making it slippery. In the dark cave they had to bring the fight to the dragon and not the other way around.

So they couldn't use ranged attacks against it effectively. The only fire attacks they have are a burning hands wand and a scroll of fireshield (which the sorcerer attempts to cast on the Jazumai, but ends up just protecting himself with it)

When it moved up and took its one attack it caused quite a bit of hurt - a lot of power attack on that bite. Fighters move up (slipping about) and one of them gets a nasty AoO from the creatures tail. Only one of each of the two fighter attacks hit it. Another fighter who gets in later has to deal with its damage resistance reducing all his damaging attacks. Now the fighters are standing toe to toe with a nasty dragon that has +18 for its primary attack and +13 for 5 other attacks, which it unloads against one target at a time, taking 3 or 4 points of power attack. Blam, one dead target.

I can't imagine how your 7th level party would be able to inflict 142 points of damage on the thing so quickly without an easy-peasy setup.

The priest was pants in comparison. worse AC, worse at causing damage, not as mobile, no reach...

Targos This was said by no less than Monte Cook himself - he said that the dragons CR was for "a party that were prepared and ready to fight that dragon" and it should be 1-2 higher if you came across it unprepared. This was on his RttToEE messageboards.

Cheers

 

[Petrosian]

The three most important things when assessing CR for encounters are... situation, situation, situation.

Situations key elements i find are prep level, intelligence, and terrain.

First case is Prep level.

For each encounter, what was the prep level for the two sides? Full assault (spelled up and potioned up with even short term combat spells), general combat mode (long term combat spells up but not the short ones) or safe mode (not even many of the hour spells up. Expectation of safety.) Prep level is more significant with greater magic resources like multiple casters and items (even weak ones like potions) than it is for raw brute force groups.

Second case in intelligence.

While this obviously can mean "how smart are they" and thus how much advantage they can take of an ambush or surprise, it more importantly refers to how much do they know about what lies ahead. If they know its a cold drake, their elements spells will be keyed correctly, for instance. If they know its undead, protection spells will abound and clerics up front for turnin.

Third case is terrain.

The general terrain, specific terrain like traps or bottlenecks and starting range all have a severe impact on the fight. Against a flyer, if its open so he can take to the air, the fighters get seriously degraded, especially if the flyer has ranged attacks like dragon's breath. In some cases even if the terrain is relatively neutral, knowledge of specific elements of terrain like "down this way it narrows to 5'"

While the DMG goes into some detail about the effects of situation on CR, in my experience, they downplay it. it plays a huge role.

 

[Plane Sailing]

While the DMG goes into some detail about the effects of situation on CR, in my experience, they downplay it. it plays a huge role.

I agree absolutely with your assessment here. I suppose this is what is briefly covered under "adjusting EL", but the subject could really have done with a lot more spelling out.

To be honest, the whole situation of Ambushes (setting, spotting, who, what where why and when) isn't really covered very clearly IMO, and the impact that can have on an EL could be tremendous - if rogues are involved for starters!

Cheers

 

[hong]

n.b. they were hunting the white dragon, and were fully prepared for it. I wonder if dragon CR's were underrated to give them more of a "rep"

Yes. This is well-known.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I think the "rep" of dragons would be better advertised by cranking up their CRs to realistic levels.


IIRC, Monte said was...

The CRs more or less assumed that the party had a good inkling what they were up against & opportunity to prepare, AND the dragon had a strong sense of self preservation.

Dragons have a strong sense of self-importance and are long lived. Therefore, unlike adventurers, they are rarely reckless. So a dragon that is down 25% HPs is going to retreat or flee unless he is confident he is winning. A dragon down 50% will bug out if escape is at all practical.

That makes a big difference. "Defeating" a dragon would therefore usually mean chasing it away. A fight to the death battle should boost the CR by 1 or 2 on that basis alone.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Where in the DMG does it talk about ambushes and CR? I have my own copy of the 3e DMG and I simply can't find it. Help!

Thanks in advance

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Where in the DMG does it talk about ambushes and CR? I have my own copy of the 3e DMG and I simply can't find it. Help!

Thanks in advance

Strictly speaking, it doesn't.

In the section talking about CRs, it makes vague mention about shifting the Encounter Level up or down based on the circumstances. Implicitly, the CR is what you use as a starting point for EL.

It is not exactly clearly stated, although the ideas are there.